Heron Wars

This is my fish pond... or rather, it was.  Now it's just a pond. My neighbour spotted a heron on the garden fence a few mornings ago, and sure enough he had helped himself to all my lovely fish.

I originally wanted this to be a wildlife pond. Having dug it out and lined it, I added some water-loving plants then waited to see what creatures would make it their home. Before long I had pond skaters, waterboatmen, frogs, tadpoles and the occasional newt.

Dragonflies were frequent summer visitors and I thrilled at watching them lay eggs in the water or on the waterside stones. But when the eggs hatched the bugs ate the tadpoles and almost everything else! My lovely pond had become an attractive dragonfly breeding ground – not exactly what I'd hoped for.

A friend offered me a few goldfish from her over-stocked pond. Two had babies, together they ate the next year's frog spawn and soon we were giving away fish to anyone who would have them.

Then along came Mr Heron.

Subsequently I've been searching the Internet for ways of keeping herons at bay. It seems that the only 100% secure method is to place a net over the pond, like this...

or even this...

The cure, it seemed to me, was worse than the problem and would surely spoil the beauty of my lovely pond. 

After much pondering (sorry – couldn't resist that one) and head scratching I've gone for two methods, neither of which is guaranteed to work but, in combination, will hopefully do the trick.

The first is a plastic heron, who I've named Henry. Opinion is divided over whether he will work, but in theory herons are strongly territorial and won't encroach on another heron's patch. But of course they must do occasionally, or how else would they have babies? 

Solution #2 is an electric fence – a bit extreme, perhaps, but less of an eyesore than a net. 

Installation wasn't straightforward as the mains powered transformer-shocker thingy has to be kept dry. Ours is in the kitchen larder, which necessitated running wires through the wall and under a concrete path. After much drilling, chiselling, cementing and cursing, it's in. 

That's the garden budget exhausted for a few weeks but I hope to begin restocking the pond later this month. If Mr Heron comes back in the mean time to search of stragglers, and defies Henry, he's hopefully in for a surprise.